Carter County is Better Off from 5 years Ago

Political season is in full swing and, just like any other major election year, we hear politicians from the local level all the way up to the national level talk about the economy. Inevitably, the party currently holding office will talk about how great the economy is, how many jobs were added, and have stories about all of the businesses they have helped. And, in response, the challenging party will talk about how awful the economy is, how we need to create more jobs, do more to help our grow businesses, and also have stories about establishments that went out of business. So, which is it? Are things good or bad? Well, let’s look at something that can’t lie – the numbers.

Let’s specifically take a look at Carter County over a 5 year time-frame (2010 to 2015). We’ll look at three different measures – jobs, number of businesses, and average annual salaries. The number of private sector jobs in Carter County has grown 6.7 percent over the last 5 years from 7,704 jobs to 8,222 jobs. The creation of over 500 jobs in 5 years in Carter County is a good growth rate, however this does trail the state growth rate of almost 13 percent. Add in local, state, and federal government employment to the County’s job growth numbers and we’ve added almost 650 new jobs in the last 5 years.

The number of businesses in our county have also grown by 4.8 percent with the creation of over 30 new businesses. Compared to the state average 7.7 percent growth in new businesses, Carter County still lags the rest of the state in growth of new businesses.

Lastly, and most importantly, is salary. Over the last 5 years the average annual salary has increased over $4,000 to $32,117! The salary growth rate of 14.5 percent beats the inflation rate for the same period of 8.7 percent and even beats the state average salary growth rate of 12.4 percent. The impact of salary increases means people have more money to shop in our local economy, have more money to save for traumatic life events, and more money to improve their homes and property. Salary increases have a rising tide effect.

There, of course, are other factors that can be considered to determine the viability of our economy, but for right now I think it’s safe to say Carter County is better off than it was 5 years ago. We’re in a stronger position and we must continue keeping the momentum moving forward. Let’s talk about it!